Her eyes blink and they are full of gloss. Like the surface of still water, subtly rippling. Seeing me, or sensing my hesitation, she surges up again as if to strike. But this time she speaks — snarls — and I am surprised by her.
“Just do it already! Don’t you dare stop! Don’t you dare let me win!”
There is some hidden weight in her words I fail to understand, though their meaning is clear. I am failing her as a warrior male, for I have not yet fulfilled my right of conquest. And yet…she is so soft…
I position myself fully over her and snarl brutally as my xora presses forward, diving past the first of her folds and reaching a fountain of fire and silk. The pleasure is inundating. She must feel it too because she turns her face to the side, ripping back and forth. Her breath forms in clouds. Her eyes, she shuts.
“Xiveri,” I whisper, hating the tint of a question coloring my tone. Okkari does not question. He commands. Yet, I have never been less sure.
The pounding in my chest is riotous but the honeyed thread of the Xanaxana beneath my breast sours and stills. Something is not right.
“Xiveri, I wish to look upon you for the ritual mating.”
She shakes her head and her bottom jaw sets fiercely. “No. Never.”
I frown. This is not the way. I have never completed the Mountain Run before this, but I have heard the tales. I have seen Xiveri mates in each other’s presences. The connection between them is visible to anyone within sight. Yet she turns from me as if she attempts to shut such a connection out. She is human. Perhaps she does not feel Xanaxana in the same way we do. If this is the case, then what I attempt to do to her here will not be a union. It will be a rape.
A hiss barrels out from between my teeth and my xora shrinks at the thought. Rape. A scandalous, treasonous thing only for those with no honor. I am Okkari. I am its very definition.
I lift my hips and quickly cover my xora, still straining for her. When I settle against her again, I move one hand to the side of her face, the other to her neck. We lay still for some moments while the wind gains in intensity and the cold of the night rises around us. But no matter how gently I stroke her clear, unblemished skin, or how calmly I inhale and exhale — showing her that I am a male in control of his inner beast — she does not release the tension that warps and rattles her frame. She does not stop shaking.
Something is very wrong.
I reach down for the panel still open at the front of her coverings and very carefully tie them back into place. As I work, the backs of my fingers brush against the outside of her mound, finding soft fur there, slick with wetness. I try to swallow my desire, but a haggard groan escapes me, one full of male desperation.
My xora bucks against her thigh and I can feel cream bead along its tip. I am tortured by it, yet it is she who releases a tortured sort of sound. She must sense her defeat is near. She does not know that I will not claim her. Not like this. Not ever like this. I have waited all my rotations to claim the female the universe created for me, not even knowing if I would find her. I will not spoil this moment. Claiming her when this sensation of wrongness hangs so heavy between us I can scarcely breathe its cloying air, would ruin everything.
Pressing my weight down onto her, she tenses even more, but this cannot be helped. Ice crystals form on her skin. I need to warm her. I need to remove her from this. But the Run has not been completed. My Xiveri mate remains unclaimed. This is not the way things are done on Nobu. This is not tradition. A flash of irritation. A thimble of shame. Tradition is not worth keeping if it causes pain.
“My Xhea,” I say and she winces at the sound of my voice. Wrong. This is wrong. Against tradition. Against Voraxia. But she is not Voraxian. Perhaps this is not her culture.
Perhaps she has never heard of a Mountain Run or a Hunt as is practiced by the ancient Dra’Kesh, once rooted here on Nobu before migrating to Cxrian. The Dra’Kesh left behind many of their genetic traits to mix with those of the Voraxian populations that remained, resulting in the varied skin tones of my people. And then they left this. But if she is not Dra’Kesh and is not Voraxian, perhaps she does not know of this. Perhaps, to consummate our Xiveri union, she needs something else. Wants something else.
“Xivoora Xiveri.” I sound pained as I speak. Realizations have not in any way dimmed the desire coursing through me, threatening to unbecome the male that I am. It is painful, but for her I would suffer through the vilest of tortures, drown in the deepest of seas.
I push her matted, freezing hair from her face and arch my body over hers to try to bring up her declining body temperature. Our foreheads touch and in the quiet space between our mouths where not even the savage wind can reach, I whisper, “Warrior, what do you need?”
4
Kiki
“Warrior what do you need?”
My thoughts are fucking haywire. Every emotion and nerve ending and sensation and thought and breath in my body is wired to stay alive. To block this out. To fight. Fight! Don’t stop fighting! But I do stop fighting because I’ve lost. Now all that’s left is to wait for him to do to me what the other one did. What he brought me here for.
Then why did he stop?
His huge fingers invaded me against my will and then he tasted my insides. He’d looked wrecked by the taste, like it was some exquisite meal, and me, the full fucking feast. I tried to ignore the heat of his passion. I tried to ignore everything about him, but his scent. I just couldn’t block that out. In a way that can only be described as ancient and primal, it called to me.
The oasis. A lush green plant, that rich fauna, a gentle heat. No. Don’t get sucked in. Fight! Kill! But how do you kill an oasis? Not even the desert can do that.
I moan — sob. Pathetic. Weak. To silence the sounds slipping out of me, I bite the inside of my cheek until I taste blood. Pain is better than fear. Pain is better than capitulation. Anything is better than capitulation. I’m supposed to be fighting. But I’m so exhausted. And the scent. I just want to give up and dive in.
“Xiveri, what do you need? Speak to me.”
“No.” He’s the enemy. He positioned himself between my legs without my permission. He was going to rape me. He’s still going to rape me. Why hasn’t he? I’m so confused. The smell is cloying. I can’t breathe through it. I blink in the sight of his face. He’s staring down at me and his strange purple face is illuminated by fuchsia and pink lights beaming from his forehead — a lamp to the counter of the dark red sky behind him and the white swirling through it. The cold white. But it’s so warm in the cage of his arms.
He frowns and starts to pull back. Hope flares for a second that he’ll leave me be — that he’ll leave me to die — but when he sits back on his heels, he grabs the front of my suit and drags me up.
I try to push him back, but my hand sings from hitting him earlier and I’m slowing down. No. I trained. Endurance. I can do this. But I’ve been in that syrup for who knows how long and I haven’t eaten or drunk any water in a day at least and I’ve fought warriors and battled this beast of a male and somehow none of this matters as much as the scent of his purple, alien skin and the havoc it’s wreaking on my mind and will and body.
“Are you injured?” He says and there is a strain in his tone I hate.